The Aerie
Today is my lovely wife's actual 40th birthday, although we're "officially" celebrating with a party on Saturday. I've been freaking out trying to plan her party and work at my job at the same time. So while she relaxes with her pie and her new Dana Wireless, a review of the day so far...
I got up at 5:30 in the morning to make birthday waffles as well as bacon and coffee and as it turned out we needed a new batch of syrup (brown and white sugar, water, molasses, mapleine flavoring, vanilla). G woke early and helped me fix breakfast, which was a big hit when everyone woke up at 7:00.
At 8:00 I dropped the kids off at school and went to work. There I had to sit in a two-hour meeting in a tiny stuffy crowded conference room from 8:30 to 10:30. Remaining awake was a serious challenge. This was one of those "Big Boss" meetings where everyone is invited to commit smiling career suicide by asking questions and making comments. I'm a contractor, I kept my yap shut.
At 11:00 I had to turn in a completed design, which I somehow managed to create in the intervening half hour. Then I had another design due at a 1:30 meeting, which I also threw together. I didn't even notice that I didn't get lunch.
I picked up the kids at 2:30 at school, drove them to three stores to shop for presents, and dropped G off at the Children's Theater for her class at 3:50. Then I drove the boys home, ran downstairs, and took a conference call for work from 4:30 to 5:00.
Following the call I wrapped the presents, got the boys to sign their cards, and we all drove over and picked up G at the CTC at 5:30.
We drove to dinner at Baker's Square, which we ordered before 6:00 and got a discount. I still ended up paying $75 for the meal and a pie.
Then we all drove home to see Survivor at 7:00, which we watched until 8:00. Then we put candles in the Baker's Square pie sang 'Happy Birthday' and opened presents until 8:30.
Then I helped D and G with their homework until 9:00. And now I'm here, but I have to go put the kids to bed.
The entire week has been like this - but I'm not allowed to complain! I had a four-day vacation last week, visiting a friend's wedding in Upstate New York, so I'm just suffering from Karmic Rebalancing right now. Still, I'll be happy when the party on Saturday is over!
Well, I'm home again, home again, after my four-day excursion to New York for my friend's wedding. I had a really good time, although I had a number of minor mishaps. I locked my keys in my rental car right before the wedding started, and after the very expensive locksmith retrieved them a very helpful fellow told me a) he had AAA and could have gotten my car opened for free for me, and b) the rental agency would have sent someone out to open the car for free.
I kind of don't believe the latter -- maybe the agency would have sent someone, but I suspect that whoever they sent might not have arrived very quickly. At least this way I had my keys back in an hour. And while the obvious response to his AAA membership would have been to ask him where he was an hour before, the other notion is that AAA isn't free. I lock my keys in my car about once every five years, and I suspect that as expensive as the locksmith was, he cost less than five years of AAA membership.
So there was that little mishap, and then I left my camera behind at a friend's house, but that's not too bad. She said she'd overnight the camera to me, so I should have it tomorrow.
Those were the downsides. The upsides were plenty.
To start with I got to see my friends, the Danays, again. They're all girls so I can use their names: none of them are Danay's anymore. The Danays lived across the street from me in Queens when I was growing up, and Barbara was my best friend. Her twin sisters were younger and shyer, and there was always that which-one-am-I-talking-to awkwardness as well.
I'm back in New York City, on my way to the wedding of my friend Tim, the fellow who escorted me to Ground Zero the week after 9/11.
My Sun Country flight left at 6:30 a.m., right on time. I picked a very early flight and a very late return (6:30 p.m. out of JFK on Sunday) because I'm trying to turn one trip into three, visitin my friends on Staten Island, my college buddy in Albany, and my friend Tim's wedding all in one big blast. Sleep may be limited this weekend, but good times are plentiful.
I've never flown out of the Humphrey Terminal before, and while it is nice and new and crisp-looking, it lacks a lot of the amentities, with only one cafe. Since airlines are so stingy these days I grabbed a pathetic chocolate muffin and a pathetic decaf before boarding my flight, and a newspaper to boot. I managed to drip coffee on my white shirt on the very first sip. Oddly enough the stain landed squarely upon a previous coffee stain, showing that while I may have a drinking problem I am at least consistent with my dribbling.
The flight left, right on time, and even flew over my neighborhood so I was able to grab a couple photos out the window (although they turned out uniformly blurry).
Sun Country has much nicer amenities than any other flight I've recently taken, even though they're meager in comparison to the heyday of flight. Back when I was a lad, an airline trip included a hot meal served on a tray, even in coach. Most of my recent flights have involved miniature bags of minature pretzels.
Sun Country tried a lot harder, and were more generous. They made two passes with the beverage cart, AND they handed out breakfast muffins. They were gawdawful, but it's the thought that counts, after all. And while they were bland and gummy they were also piping hot. Of course this made my pre-flight coffee-muffin-and-dribble combo a fairly redundant expense. I was ready to kick myself for having bought a paper, too, except that the free newspapers ran out at the row behind me. Yah, I beat Murphy's Law just this once!
Despite the quality I at least landed in something other than a state of complete starvation. There was a bit of a wait at the Rental Agency, during which I chatted with a fellow visiting his native NYC from Fort Lauderdale to attend something called "The Feast of San Gennaro." After I picked up my rental car and made good time across the Verazzano Bridge ($8.00!) to Staten Island.
Barbara, Jeannie, and Carol are my oldest friends - they lived across the street when I was growing up in Queens. After I moved at age 8 we lost touch for thirty years. Then a fortunate Internet meeting happened to put be back in touch with them again in 2000, and my family had a wonderful time visiting with them when we made our East Coast Excursion that year.
They are a classic New York family - kind, loving, loud, and naturally hyper. Stepping from my car I was immediately engulfed in their family swirl. Their children, whose names I half-remembered had doubled in size, and gotten good and smartaleky. But they're great folks, taking time off of work to show me around once again.
So the great gaggle of us, four adults and five kids, made our way into New York. We carpooled to the train, rode the train to the ferry, took the ferry to the island where we caught another train and emerged in Greenwich village.
To call Greenwich Village an interesting place would be gross understatement. Sidewalk stalls sold scatologically-labelled T-shirts, marijuana pipes, and junk jewelry. Spiky-haired punks mourned the day's passing of Johnny Ramone by passing bottles on stoops, aggressively perfect young straight women stalked arrogantly past, and aggressively cool young lesbians held hands while they window-shopped. The sidewalks were uneven, crowded and narrow, the streets doubly so, and the crowd was mildly jostly as our crew made its way along.
Barbara's rebelliously-Republican 15-year-old stopped frequently to shop for vinyl records (which he then lugged around the city for five hours). My friends amazed me with their aplomb in handling these kids - they let the kids wander freely, yet always seemed to know where they were. They trusted their youngest not to dash out into the street, and he never did. Their easy aplomb in navigating the streets of New York contrasted starkly with the anxious protectionism that the Minneapolitans that I know practice with their own kids. And the kids returned the trust by being responsible about maintaining contact.
We disturbed Jeannie's workplace by paying it a visit in the middle of the day, disrupting conferences and distracting workers. Then one very nice fellow pointed out that the feast of San Gennaro was taking place only a few blocks away in Little Italy. Of course, the event that the fellow in the car rental office had mentioned to me.
The Feast of San Gennaro took over Mulberry Street for ten blocks, and was crammed with some of the best Italian foods in the city. I sampled an immense spicy sausage sandwich that occasioned a few ribald comments from my friends, a chocolate covered chocolate filled canolli, a kind of fried dough in powdered sugar, and some bad, expensive lemonade (too sweet and weak).
We walked all the way through the festival and then back along Broadway, by which time the kids were at the limit of their tolerance (they were all very good). Fortunately we managed to grab a bus back to Staten Island (by way of tunnel and the Verrazano Bridge), and I got to have a nice chat with Barbara along the way in air conditioned comfort.
After a very long day we split up at our cars, and I drove Jeannie, her daughter and her daughter's friend back to Jeannie's apartment, stopping along the way to see the house that they just bought - their first in 16 years of marriage. It looks great - just one block from the school, two full floors, and a yard. I guess it will be expensive for them, but I'm really excited on their behalf.
When we got to Jeannie's home her husband had prepared ribs and rice and salad for dinner, which was very kind. After dinner I sat down at their computer to help clean it of the 400+ adware, spyware, and viruses that were keeping it from working very well.
Now everyone has gone off to bed, but I'm still up, writing down my memories of the day. Off to bed! Tomorrow's the Groom's Dinner and who knows what else!
It's been three years since I wrote my response to 9/11, "Wage Peace". I knew at the time that the sentiments were hopelessly optimistic, and terribly idealistic.
But I wrote it and published it in the Star Tribune because I could see what was coming, and I dreaded it. I knew that a military response was inevitable, and I had to voice my beliefs on the matter: that we should be proactive, not reactive; that we should be creative, not destructive; and that we should use our best and most unique tools.
Of course I am disappointed. When we went into Afghanistan I believed we acted justly... and that was the last point of congruence between what I believe we should have done, and what we did.
When we disengaged from working for peace in Israel, we lost an opportunity.
When we ceased helping Afghanistan in a substantive way, we lost an opportunity.
When we demonstrated that the ends of overthrowing a tyrant do not justify the means of deception and misdirection, we turned an opportunity in Iraq into a disaster.
I still believe we should "do something." I still believe that the US should act to change the world for the better, both out of altruistic motives and also in search of pragmatic self-protection.
But I don't know if we will or can, not simply under the present administration, but under the present culture that exists inside the D.C. beltway and in the U.S. electorate. I don't know if we, as a people, are willing to face reality and examine our flaws and make the changes necessary to create a better world for the world. We are the deliberately blind.
So here we are, three years later. Osama bin Laden is still free, the Anthrax Mailer is still unknown, and the dead of 9/11 are still dead. Afghanistan is a mess, Iraq is free of oppression and aflame with violence, and America is bitterly divided.
How hopeless these words seem now...
Wage Peace
Let us deploy our troops. Let our diplomats seek broad international agreement. Let our soldiers advance first, to clear the field of violence. Then let us unleash our most powerful weapons! Let us lay down roads where none have ever been. Let us dig wells of clean water where people can safely drink. Let our armies build hospitals and schools. Let our warriors teach hygiene and mathematics. Let our doctors inoculate against disease, and our soldiers battle malnutrition. Let us scour the Earth clean of terrorism through the merciless application of knowledge, compassion, hope and tolerance.
Terrorism is the weapon of the desperate and hopeless, the brutally blinded, and the deliberately blind. And we can defeat terrorism.
We, America, have the power to do so if we are not ourselves blinded by vengeance, anger and fear: We hold the light of Liberty. So let us unleash our weapons of mass construction, even as we deploy our gunships and missiles to defend our endeavors. Let us carry the battle into the tent-cities of the Palestinians and the arid crags of Afghanistan, the doctor and the engineer shoulder to shoulder with the U.N. peacekeeper and the U.S. soldier. Let us hurl homes at homelessness, unleash law upon lawlessness, and let justice roll down like a mighty river and wash away the unjust.
We have an opportunity, now laid so grievously before us, to start and win a war with our most powerful and uniquely American weapons: love, opportunity, education and hope. England and Israel teach us that the battle against terrorism will take decades. Let the next generation all over the world say to the terrorist recruiters, "Why would we want to harm America, who inoculates our children, houses our poor, champions justice and feeds our hungry?" Only then shall we have defeated terrorism.
So let us arm our soldiers and mourn our dead, and take up both the pen as well as the sword. Let us fix a steel-eyed gaze on the true costs and the real efforts involved, let us gird ourselves against our inevitable losses and unavoidable setbacks. Let us join with all people in all nations who worship in truth and love, and let us set forth on this, the true, final World War. Let us incessantly, relentlessly wage Peace.
Part of the subtle evil of modern propaganda (from any party) is in the "framing of the debate". There's a classic old joke, "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?" to which there is no answer that does not indict the target of the query. The question has been framed so that the person asking the question cannot lose.
In America, every discussion starts out framed within our cultural obsession that every question have two answers, and those answers must be "Right" and "Wrong". Just as there is no room for "Maybe" in American dialogue, there is also no understanding that some questions only have one answer.
Social conservatives exploit this cultural tendency by framing "Have you stopped beating your wife" style questions. Questions about reproductive rights or gay rights are framed so that they cannot be answered without self-indictment.
The way in which discussion of gay rights is framed in the media is from the outset polarizing. It begins with the premise that human rights can be abridged by morally-judged choices: if one "chooses" to engage in homosexual activity, one has become morally questionable, and morally questionable people are not entitled to the full rights of an American citizen. This clearly abridges the Constitution, but it is accepted without question by those for whom moral judgement is the most important criteria of measurement.
So the question "What about gay rights?", indeed the very phrase "Gay rights" is polarizing. There are no gay rights. There are no black rights. There are ONLY human rights, and the only people able to question those rights are those who are challenging the humanity of their fellows.
The question should not be "Should gays have the right to marry?" because gays ALREADY have the right to marry. This isn't a right granted by government: indeed, the American Constitution is notable in recognizing that RIGHTS ARE INHERENT. "All men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Government does not grant rights, it only recognizes them.
For so many social conservatives, the question "Should we recognize gay rights" actually translates into "Should we grant rights to people we judge morally inferior to ourselves?" But rights are not granted by majority vote or by moral judgement - every person born shares in full human rights.
So the REAL question that should be discussed is this one: "Recently our culture has recognized that the rights of certain persons are being abridged due to oversights based on traditional practice which we now see are improper. How best may existing laws and rules be modified to ensure that these rights are no longer abridged?"
THAT'S a discussion, THAT'S an opportunity for dialogue.
There is no QUESTION of gay rights. Those rights are there. The question is now that these rights are recognized, how will society ensure that they are not abridged in any way.
There is no middle ground here. There are no nuances. You cannot in good conscience fail to choose a stance. And there is only one answer.
You are either for human rights, or you are not for human rights. Since it would be absurd to be against human rights, you must be for human rights. If you are for human rights, then the task at hand is how to ensure that the rights of your fellow men and women are not abridged.